William McDonough is a world-renowned architect and designer and winner of three U.S. presidential awards: the Presidential Award for Sustainable Development (1996), the National Design Award (2004); and the Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Award (2003). He is founder and principal of two design firms: William McDonough + Partners, Architecture and Community Design, which has created numerous landmarks of the sustainability movement since 1981, and McDonough Braungart Design Chemistry, which employs a comprehensive Cradle to Cradle design protocol to chemical benchmarking, supply-chain integration, energy and materials assessment, clean-production qualification, and sustainability issue management and optimization.

Time magazine recognized him as a “Hero for the Planet” in 1999, stating that “his utopianism is grounded in a unified philosophy that - in demonstrable and practical ways - is changing the design of the world.”